by S. J. Parris
I nodded grimly, watching Thomas. Sophia pressed her hands over her face.
“He saw me with Sophia in the library while everyone was at the disputation, before I went to Coverdale’s room,” Thomas said, with a shrug. “I was trying to persuade her not to run away with Jerome.” His brow creased briefly and he rubbed his eyes. “Then I saw you giving Ned money, I didn’t know what to do. If he had not come back early, he would not be dead. It was his own fault.”
“But you couldn’t resist visiting a martyrdom on him as well?” I said, my revulsion growing as I watched his apparent coldness. Thomas smiled slowly.
“It was a way of punishing the rector. Didn’t you always say, Sophia, that your father loved Foxe’s book more than his family? I swore I would make him hate that book. For you,” he added. “It was all for you. One day you will see that.”
“Enough!” Sophia cried, her voice thick with emotion. “Enough talking, all of you—it is almost full daylight and no doubt they will have the watch out looking for me by now. We must leave, Jerome. What’s done is done, and it will all be for nothing if we do not get away while we can.” She pulled urgently at his sleeve.
Thomas suddenly sprang to life as if a fire had been lit under him.
“You will not go to your death, Sophia,” he breathed, planting his feet firmly and fixing her with his furious gaze, his trembling hand still pointed at Jerome. “You think he will take you safe to France? Five years of training and the best part of his inheritance he has given to this mission—you really believe he will give it all up for you? No, he craves the glory of martyrdom like the rest of them. He means for you to meet with an accident at sea.”
“Your mind is addled, Thomas,” Jerome began, taking a step toward him, his hand held out in a placatory gesture. Thomas sprang away.
“But I will not let that happen,” he cried, his voice high and strangulated, “and if you will not heed my warning—”
He left the threat unspoken as, instead, he pulled the razor from under his cloak and, in the same movement, lunged at Jerome. I slipped Humphrey’s knife from my belt but the Jesuit was soundly trained; before I could move, he had pushed Sophia behind him and aimed a kick at Thomas’s outstretched arm. Thomas lost balance for a moment, though he did not drop the razor, but his slip gave Jerome the chance to bend and pull a knife from the side of his boot. Both circled warily, facing each other, eyes locked and weapons drawn, while Sophia stifled a scream and I hovered uselessly at the edge of this duel, wondering how I might intervene. But I did not have the chance; at that moment the door burst open and Barton ran into the room, his poker held aloft. Thomas wheeled around with blazing eyes and, faster than you could blink, slashed wildly at the man’s arm with his razor before he could strike. Barton howled and dropped the poker, clutching at his wound, and Thomas, seemingly crazed, leaped upon him and slashed at his neck with the razor over and over again. I threw myself at Thomas, wrapping myself around his back and pulling at his arm but he was surprisingly strong for such a wiry boy, and it seemed his fury had lent him supernatural strength. He attempted to shake me off, but I was unable to restrain him and Barton’s last guttural cries were drowned by Sophia’s screams as his lifeblood gushed from the open wound over the brick floor and his dying breath faded as he clutched at Thomas’s cloak and then slumped to the ground.
I let go of Thomas and turned, expecting to find Sophia hysterical from the scene she had just witnessed, but I saw that in the confusion Jerome had seized her from behind and was now holding her with one arm hooked around her chest, his knife pointed at the soft white skin of her throat.
“Put the razor down, Thomas,” he said, slowly and clearly, again sounding as calm as if he were a schoolmaster addressing a room full of mischievous boys. Thomas only stared slack-jawed, his face, arms, and hands sprayed with the servant’s blood, then he took a step forward and Jerome jerked the knife closer to Sophia’s neck; she bit back a cry and squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head with tiny movements.
“Let her go,” I said, trying to match Jerome’s tone of calm authority.
“Let her go? Or what will you do, Bruno?” He kept the knife tilted at her throat, regarding me as if I were a tiresome distraction. “Did you bring reinforcements?”
“No one knows I am here,” I said, not knowing if I spoke the truth. If Cobbett’s messenger had managed to get the bundle of papers to Sidney, would he gather some men and come to look for me at Hazeley Court? How long would it take them to arrive, if he did? But the chance that Slythurst had let any messenger leave the college unhindered was tiny.
As if reading my mind, Jerome shook his head impatiently.
“Well, no matter. They will be too late. Once and for all, throw your weapons down on the floor or your quest will have been in vain.” He lifted the elbow of the arm that held the knife, as if to plunge it. Thomas gave me a brief glance, then cast his razor onto the floor in front of him, where it clattered in the silence until it became still. I looked at Sophia, who had opened her eyes now and was watching me with an expression of mingled despair, fear, and disbelief, then I too threw down my knife.
Jerome nodded.
“Good. Now you will stay here, still and quiet, before anyone else gets hurt.” He was manoeuvring Sophia toward the door that led to the western tower staircase, his knife still in place at her neck. Roughly he wrestled her forward, kicking the door shut behind him; as it swung, Thomas gave a cry of rage and ran at the doorway.
“You will not succeed,” Thomas cried in ragged breaths, racing to follow them; to my surprise, Jerome was forcing Sophia up the stairs instead of down, and as Thomas reached them Jerome kicked out and caught him on the jaw, making him fall back into me, his mouth bleeding.
Undeterred, he picked himself up and launched himself onto the narrow staircase, trying to grab at Jerome’s heels as Jerome tried to kick back at him, while I followed close behind, pausing only to pick up my knife from the floor. Somewhere above us, echoing from the curving stone, we suddenly heard Sophia scream as if at a sharp pain, and I slapped at Thomas’s ankle from below.
“He still has a knife at her back,” I hissed. “For God’s sake, do nothing hasty.”
The climb was relentless; at one point I thought I heard Sophia cry, “I cannot,” and Jerome answer, “Trust me,” but the voices were muffled by the echoes. My battered legs began to tremble as we climbed higher, intermittently passing small cruciform windows that offered views over the manor’s parkland and forest, and still Jerome forced Sophia up, and we followed, until I felt a draught of chill air on my face and understood that he was leading us to the very battlements of the tower. My stomach convulsed slightly as I tried to imagine what he might have in mind, and whether all four of us would return alive.
I emerged through a low doorway behind Thomas onto a platform perhaps twelve feet wide, enclosed by eight crenellated walls the height of a man’s chest. Beyond them I could see the carriage drive and the cart track by which I had approached the house, the woods that bordered the path spread out far below us like a green canopy, and behind them, the line of distant blue hills, still misted in the early light. At this height, more than a hundred feet above the ground, the wind was shrill in my ears, slicing across the roof of the tower. On the far side, Jerome once again held Sophia at the point of his knife, his hair whipping over his face. He beckoned to Thomas with his eyes.
“Come, then, Thomas,” he called, “will you save her?”
Thomas hesitated a moment and I saw his body stiffen as he gathered his resolve, perhaps trying to judge how quickly he could move compared to Jerome. Sophia whimpered softly, her eyes flicking wildly from Thomas, to me, to the man whose arms now held her close, not for the first time, but now with very different intent. From the confusion and terror in her expression I could tell that she did not know if Jerome was serious or playacting to trap Thomas. I reached out a hand to restrain Thomas, but in that moment he made up his mind and threw himself once again
at his former master, bending to hurl his full weight at Jerome’s midriff. The priest, pushing Sophia roughly to the ground, tried to stick Thomas with his knife, but Thomas twisted aside at the crucial moment, grabbing Jerome’s raised arm in midair. For a moment their arms were raised aloft in the shape of an arch, locked together and trembling with the force of their opposing efforts, the knife flashing silver as it twisted in the air. Then Thomas jerked a knee sharply upward into Jerome’s groin; the priest yelped and doubled over, the tension in his arm momentarily lost, and in that second’s lapse Thomas bit him hard on the wrist, causing him to drop the knife. But before Thomas could pick it up, Jerome had grasped him by the hair, yanked his head back, and punched him hard in the face. Thomas attempted to hit back, blood coursing down his nose, but Jerome caught him again with a fist hard in the jaw and Thomas stumbled backward, dangerously close to the parapet.
Sophia had wriggled away to the shelter of the wall. I crouched beside her and motioned to the stairway, but she shook her head, her eyes glassy with fear and still riveted on the life-or-death struggle before us. Slowly, so as not to attract attention, I reached out and scrabbled Jerome’s fallen knife toward my hand, keeping my eyes on the fighting pair all the time. Thomas, now badly bruised and bleeding, mustered one last burst of energy and thrust a hand forward to grip Jerome by the throat; Jerome, his face contorted with rage, let go of Thomas’s hair and clamped both his hands around the boy’s neck. They swayed together in this oddly intimate dance, matching each other’s steps, now one pushing forward, now the other, both choking and gasping through gritted teeth until it seemed that both must expire in the same moment, so fierce and determined were their crimson faces, when Jerome, who had the advantage of weight and strength, managed to force Thomas a few steps farther back, into a gap between the battlements. Thomas felt the wall against his back and appeared to tighten his hold on Jerome’s neck; Jerome leaned all his weight forward, pushing Thomas so that he was hanging backward through the gap, and for a moment I thought they would fall to their deaths together, when suddenly Sophia leaped to her feet, grabbed Jerome’s knife from my hand before I realised what she was doing, and ran across to the fighting pair where she stabbed the knife, just once, into Thomas’s right hand, still clamped fast around Jerome’s throat.
Thomas cried out and released his grip involuntarily; in the same moment Jerome also let go of Thomas’s throat and, bracing himself against the brick parapet, gave Thomas one almighty shove in the chest. With a harrowing scream, the boy flailed for a moment, his hands grasping furiously at nothing, before he toppled backward and vanished from our sight, that terrible last cry echoing fainter and fainter as he fell seven tiers to the waiting ground. The impact was so dull that we barely heard it from the roof. I wanted to lean over and look but kept my distance from the parapet, afraid to turn my back to Jerome. Sophia collapsed into his arms, sobbing and shaking violently. Gently he prised the knife from her fingers and rested his chin on the top of her head, breathing hard in ragged gasps. He looked across at me, the fury drained from his face and in its place only a bone-deep exhaustion. He rubbed his throat and twisted his neck from side to side as if to ease the pain.
“It had to come sooner or later,” he croaked, his voice barely audible. “He would have been found out eventually, and then he would have taken me down with him.”
“We have killed him,” Sophia sobbed, raising her tear-streaked face from Jerome’s shoulder. “Oh, God, we have killed him! Poor Thomas—he was my only friend once. Will God ever forgive us his blood?” She looked up to the sky, now streaked with bands of blue, the worst of the rain clouds scurrying away toward the horizon.
“He killed two men, Sophia,” Jerome said hoarsely, still rubbing his throat. “He would have killed me. We are fighting a holy war, remember. To kill those who oppose God’s kingdom is not murder.”
“Is that what they teach you at Rheims?” I asked, recovering myself and moving toward the stairs. Now that Jerome was in possession of his knife again I realised how vulnerable I was. I fervently did not want to follow Thomas over the parapet, but it was clear that Sophia could not be counted upon to act against Jerome, and I could not see that there was any chance he might let me walk free.
“And what of Sophia?” I added. “Would it have been murder to have her killed before she reached France? Is she in the way of God’s kingdom?”
Jerome laughed abruptly, wincing as the effort hurt his bruised throat.
“You saw for yourself how troubled that boy’s mind was, Doctor Bruno. Once he had dirtied his hands with murder, he began to believe the rest of the world was also bent on killing. He was deluded to the very end.”
He took a step toward me, but before I could reach the stairs I collided with a body; whipping around, I saw that the doorway was blocked by two solid-looking servants in household livery. One of them, a burly man who was a good foot taller than me, grasped my arm and twisted it up behind my back, sending bursts of white-hot pain through my shoulder. This time I offered no resistance. I was not going to fight my way out of this, I realised. It seemed that unless the Jesuit was willing to show mercy, I had very little hope.
Chapter 20
I will ask you again, Bruno—who else knows you are here?” Jerome circled me, his eyes infinitely patient.
“No one,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Where are the papers you took from my chamber? The ones Thomas left for you to find?”
I shook my head. “I hid them in my room. No one else knows they are there.”
He frowned.
“He is lying,” he said, after a pause, addressing the servants. “Listen—we have not much time. You”—he motioned to the second man—“go now, tell Lady Eleanor to expect a visit from the pursuivants in the near future, and request her to send a fast rider to Rowland Jenkes of Catte Street in Oxford. Bring him here as soon as possible. I must get Sophia safely on the road—her father will have people looking for her by now. Then I must return to Oxford. This man”—he nodded toward me—“must be kept alive until Jenkes arrives. He travels with the royal party—there must be nothing in his death that could point to us, any of us. It must be made to look like a highway robbery or some such. But Jenkes must speak to him first. He will be glad to be reunited with you, will he not, Doctor Bruno?”
“Sophia, he means to kill you,” I burst out, as Jerome motioned for the servants to manhandle me back down the stairs. “You may believe he cares for you,” I cried in desperation, “but you heard with your own ears—he believes he has a dispensation from God Himself to cut down anyone who stands in his way! Do not go with him—you will never see France. Go back to your family, they will understand, I am sure of it.”
The servant tugged again on my arm as a warning, and pulled me back toward the stairs.
“I cannot, Bruno!” Sophia called in a cracked voice, as the servant ushered me roughly through the doorway and onto the staircase. “I can never go back, not now. Apart from the child, I am a convert to Rome—I would only be tortured in some filthy gaol to betray my friends, and the child would likely die, and then I would end wishing I was dead.”
“That will not happen,” I called up the stairs, my voice echoing above me as the servant shoved me in the back of the head. “I would help you—I have friends—”
“You, Bruno?” Jerome’s mocking voice floated down the stairs. “Oh yes, you have influential friends, I do not doubt it. But they are not here, and you will not be able to reach them, whatever you may have told them already.”
When we reached the tier where the stairwell opened into the grand gatehouse room, the man holding me dragged me out and waited for Jerome to emerge. Sophia followed, her dress dishevelled and her face pale and blotchy. The brief look she cast me was tense with distress.
“He must be bound,” Jerome said curtly. He held out his knife toward me. “Fetch ropes and a cloth to gag his mouth—you may leave him here with me. If he tries to flee he will not
get far.”
The servant grunted and released my arm, though from the pain I could barely unbend it. As he disappeared through the door, Jerome advanced on me, holding out his knife.
“Come, Bruno, I would show you something,” he said, almost smiling. “Please do not make things more difficult by trying to run now—I would have to hurt you and I do not want to do that.”
He beckoned me toward the opposite door into the eastern tower, where he and Sophia had been hidden when we first arrived.
Instead of a stairwell, this door led to a room lit by a tall window in each of the six outward-facing walls. As well as the door leading to the grand chamber, there was another door on the other inner wall, even narrower, leading to a small, low-ceilinged room built into the brickwork where the tower joined the east wing of the house, which I guessed must at one time have been a garderobe or privy. It was now quite empty, the walls of mellow brickwork, lit by two candles in sconces, and the floor of earthenware tiles. In the rear wall of this tiny room was built a recess about the height of a door and of a size that suggested it might once have held a small altar. Leaning against the interior wall of the recess, Jerome pressed his heel hard against the innermost floor tile and stepped back as a trapdoor concealed beneath the tiles swung soundlessly upward, its weight beautifully poised on a wooden pivot. The lid was made from two solid blocks of oak nailed together, perhaps a foot thick; when in place its covering of tiles made it invisible, and no priest-hunter, knocking on the surface, would hear any hollow sound from within.
“Welcome to my home away from home.” Jerome gestured with his knife. “Not even five among the servants know this hide is here. It is carved into the very fabric of the house and is made to be undetectable from either side. You will find it surprisingly comfortable.”
“Master Owen’s handiwork?” I asked.
Jerome glanced sidelong at me. “Very good. I see you have learned much, Bruno. The question is, how much have you passed on?”